Leaky streams: Identifying variable bitrate DASH videos streamed over encrypted 802.11n connections

In recent years, Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) has become the primary method to deliver video on the Internet, with Netflix currently leading the industry. Thus, any method to determine the content of a wireless Netflix stream presents a potential privacy concern for the entire DASH industry. In this paper, we demonstrate that it is possible to identify the Netflix video being streamed over an encrypted 802.11n connection with high accuracy in less than five minutes. Moreover, our technique works in scenarios where it is difficult to capture data frames due to a wireless access point's use of enhancements such as beamforming and multi-input/multi-output transmission.